new harry potter covers:

starting to get excited...

a quick request...

if there's anyone coming up (or is it down?) from London in the next week who could pick up a dishwasher for us we'd be REALLY grateful - please let us know if you can...

the IT (and we're not talking about computers!)

amy has been blogging her reflections on the IT. her post explains it in a lovely mystical way, as you would expect from a beautiful mystical spirit(!), but as i dwell on it, it is starting to penetrate the dry areas in my bones. it is starting to take me to a new level of hope that is fresh and vibrant and all this on top of glories of God that i have been experiencing through the kitchen situation. and i can almost feel it opening the eys of my heart deeper. bring on the IT!

the kitchen - everything you ever wanted to know, almost!

i'm uploading a file - never done this before but if it works it will fill you in on what's happening our end.
saga%20details.doc

happy (official) birthday jos!

1 today, and still smiling!

sadly no birthday photo on hand, so some of us in orkney instead:

thanks Dr V!

just listened to a bbc lent talk. worth a few minutes of your time. i'm hoping to follow them over the next few weeks...

here's the link!

reflections on lent...

this year we have given up alcohol. we did this because we both felt that God was making the suggestion. We also felt God was suggesting we have an intentional response to the process and realised through a comment on andrew jones' blog that this response was one of charity and social justice.

andrew is writing as a response to an article on lancaster online about the emerging church and lent. one of the guys commenting, a friend of ours called brad (who incidentally gave us some way cool coffee pots a while back that we could with getting wired up for british electrics) said some stuff i liked, and wanted to quote:

"i think this is far more complex than whether this is a 'protest' or 'reform' or 'regain' or 'restore.' i suspect that ALL OF US tend to confuse our abstract doctrinal concepts with concrete biblical facts, and confuse our so-called 'biblical' methodologies practices with actual biblical prescriptives.

one of the tasks of each disciple and each generation of disciples is to act as Bereans to investigate the Scriptures to see what FACTS are so and to keep working on improved CONCEPTUALIZATIONS of how the facts fit together. i would hope we could learn from both past and present approaches, ALL OF WHICH ARE IMPERFECT.

we should ALWAYS be 'protesting' or 'antithesizing' even our own theological patterns, if we are being as Bereans. it doesn't mean we're pro-papists or re-reformers or anti-authoritarianists or non-inerrantists, etc. we may not use the same language of theological concepts that others use, but isn't it part of our responsibility to the continuity of our faith to keep pressing toward a comprehensive, holistic, integrative worldview AND part of our presponsibility to the discontinuity of our times to embody that faith in authentic ways before all peoples?"

the bigger picture of reflecting on why i do what i do in my faith journey is a picture i don't spend much time looking at. thinking in terms of lent etc... i know why i pray, worship, go to church. i know what my current beliefs are, but i continue to 'write my theology in pencil' as i know from experience and the wisdom of others that God's process of revelation is often a long, slow one. my instinct is to hear the firsr thing he shows me and set that up as 'my belief' rather than stepping into the process of revelation.

reflections on wool

when we left orkney debbie jones gave me a bag of raw wool. it smells of sheep and farms and has a greasy feel to it. if you teke some it pulls apart really easily. however, if you start to pull it apart slightly and twist it at the same time it forms a yarn (basic spinning). you can pull this yarn really hard and it won't break. it has incredible strength. you can then dye this yarn, wash it, knit it, crochet it, whatever. the possibilities of what can be created from the first bit of wool are infinite.

i was reflecting on this further in terms of us - psalm 139 says that God knits us together in our mother's womb. so i was thinking into that about how He takes sometghing (a sperm and an egg) which on their own are pretty week and insignificant but He makes infinite creations from it - we reflect His image and yet not one of us is like another through the entirity of time. That is a big reflection of His image!

Also though in our journey of faith and growth and life He is taking us as weak, broken, grubby things and purifying us, cleansing us, transforming us through renewal (we will be transformed daily by the renewing of our minds) and bringing us more and more into a finished garment which is who we will be in glory. but His grace is sufficient for any times we caused Him to miss a stitch or drop a stitch or caused Him to pull to tight or slacken off. all because he chooses to give us freedom to be and do what we choose. I suspect the times we choose His way and his plan, the fabric of the knitting is pretty perfect! as shannon has been known to say, "He is drawing us into His rich tapestry".

just some thoughts...

Inspiration for prayer

i was reading andrew jones'blog today and saw this wonderful post about the prayer of Jael. It really made me realise that so often i read scripture without seeing the story in a modern-setting. in the sense that i don't imagine things like what the person was thinking or saying etc. i find it hard to read between the lines of what was going on.

at church we're studying mark's gospel and we're using a book called "say to this mountain" by ched myers. on sunday i heard a part of the story in chapter 2 one way and then as we started discussing it and other people brought out the'r understanding of it a light came on for me. it is so exciting exploring the bible with our new church - challenging, inspirational, worshipful, illuminating, frustrating at times but worth every minute.

so andrew's post about the prayer of Jael feels like a breath of fresh air - permission to be real with God in the way that the psalms push us to be honest with God. and then, by speaking the truth in love and not living lives of falsehood, being honest with each other. this is probably the harder of the two for me because being honest with others about certain bits of me meanms i am choosing to put myself ina very vulnerable place. but God is knitting together family in our new church - that feels like how He is showing it to me. we are a brand new church - only had 2 meetings and i feel like God is saying, "you may be church, but most of all i am making you a family". i need to reflect more on what that means to be family - there is a lot of the good, the bad and the ugly in family and i wonder what that might mean in terms of church as family.

autism...

something i found on the net yesterday - full article on conceptart.org